Bishnupriya Manipuri Online

By Bijit Sarma, UAE Born and brought up in a hilltop mostly inhabited by Bishnupriya Manipuri and Meitei Manipuri, at Bamunimaidan, Guwahati. I was always haunted by the question why our community always did choose hillocks to reside in Guwahati. After some introspection I zeroed in to the following possible reasons for settling in hillocks though they could have bought land in other plain areas in those days: insecurity to live among other communities to form a village-like atmosphere in the city far away from their own villages to avoid drying up offensively malodorous dry fish in front of other communities to grow Yennam and Fen-kochu in their backyard to build a mandir and maldhep combination for occasional puja and porbo to continue the culture of dola doli to borrow sugar, salt, Amul milk powder and occasional tea leafs from their BM neighbours just to settle in Govt/ Forest land without spending any money to help preserve the language and culture after leaving v...